THE PREVALENCE OF SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER AMONG STUDENTS IN QASSIM REGION

Worries and fears are a natural and adaptive part of childhood development. Anxiety and fear meet the criteria for a clinical anxiety disorder when the concerns are persistent and excessive, causing notable distress or impairment in day-to-day life(1). The anxiety disorders constitute about 12% of psychiatric disorders in the Eastern Mediterranean Region(2). one of the anxiety disorders is a social anxiety disorder, it's prevalence in US 15.5% among Female, and 11.1% among males(1), the essential feature of social anxiety disorder is a marked or intense, fear or anxiety of social situations in which others may scrutinize the individual Objectives: prevalence of social anxiety disorder among high school students. Methods: Cross section study during the academic year 2018 in Buraidah city four high schools two male and two female using Arabic LSAS yielded 421 students. Results: A total participant of 420 students 51.2% male and 48.8 female answered the questionnaire resulted in 79 cases scoring highest in acting, performing or giving a talk in front of an audience. We found 38 cases of moderate anxiety, 29 marked anxiety, 9 severe anxiety, 3 very severe anxiety. There is no association between gender or age and anxiety. Conclusion: We analyzed the data of 420 students male and female, and it showed a high prevalence of social anxiety disorder in buraidah city 18.9 %. The female students had high prevalence of moderate and marked social anxiety and lower severe and very severe social anxiety disorder unlike male students who showed a high prevalence of severe and very severe social anxiety lower prevalence of moderate and marked social anxiety, both genders scoring highest in Acting, performing or giving a talk in front of an audience.